An Affordable Cable That's As Good As The High-Priced Stuff?

I know this will seem like a considerable departure from my usual playing field, but an extremely affordable Litz-wire interconnect from ultra-high-end Japanese manufacturer Audio Tekne, handmade by the wife of Mr. Imai (the designer of all Audio Tekne gear), has come my way and it has all the makings of a genuinely terrific bargain. It is exceptionally high in transparency, low-level resolution, and sheer naturalness from top to bottom (and I'm talking in comparison to the best interconnect I know of, $12k/m Tara Labs Zero). It may not be the Zero's match, but for 4.5% of the Zero's price ($550/meter-pair) it is phenomenally good.

I haven't tried the Audio Tekne speaker cable yet, nor have I heard an entire system wired with ARC-500 (I'm mixing it with a little Zero Black and with Omega Gold speaker cables until I can get the whole Audio Tekne schmeer). But if the speaker cable is as swell as the ARC-500 interconnect we may have one of those rare price/performance breakthroughs in the very area that seems to rub audiophiles rawer than any other. For the time being I can say this: I've mixed and matched many other interconnects with Tara Labs and none of them, no matter what its price, has "fit in" as seamlessly as the Audio Tekne.